The Motor Girls Through New England; or, Held by the Gypsies

Penrose, MargaretProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4
Word count
248K words
Chapters
25

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Suspense ThrillerCampus LifeGrowing UpExotic CultureFemale PerspectiveYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Motor Girls Through New England; or, Held by the Gypsies by Margaret PenroseAuthor: Penrose, Margaret,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Mar 22, 2007

Editor's review

This is one volume in Margaret Penrose's "Motor Girls" series, a juvenile adventure novel from the early twentieth century. The story follows a group of car-driving girls on a trip through New England, where they are held captive by gypsies. Its value lies in preserving the typical features of girls' adventure fiction of the period: the mobility afforded by the automobile, mishaps and rescues along the way, and the courage and teamwork of companions. The pacing is brisk, the plot event-driven, and the language uncomplicated, making it a useful sample of the early juvenile series novel. Readers may note how the book portrays girls' mobility and travel space, which reflects both the genre's appeal and the attitudes of its time.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read it as one volume in a series, and get a sense of the basic setup of the "Motor Girls" series before starting.
  2. Note the relationship between the automobile, travel, and the girls' freedom of movement—a useful entry point for genre analysis.
  3. The original English text is moderate in length; read one or two chapters a day to combine plot progress with language practice.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25

FAQ

Do I need to read this book in series order? Strict order is not required. The volumes are relatively self-contained; this one centers on the New England trip and the captivity by gypsies, so you can follow it on its own, though knowing the basic character setup makes for a smoother read.
What should I note about the portrayal of gypsies? The book was written in the early twentieth century, and its portrayal of gypsies carries the typifications and stereotypes common to that era. Read it as a sample of period attitudes rather than an objective description of a real ethnic group.
Is it suitable for learning English? It can serve as intermediate English reading material. Sentences are short, the plot moves clearly, and unfamiliar words mostly relate to travel, vehicles, and everyday dialogue. It suits chapter-by-chapter reading practice, though some expressions feel dated.

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About the author

Penrose, Margaret Author

Margaret Penrose is an English-language author known for children's and young-adult fiction; reliable details of her life are limited, and her nationality and dates of birth and death are not clearly recorded. Based only on the holdings in this catalog, twenty-two works appear under her name, mainly girls' adventure and coming-of-age stories, including The Campfire Girls of Roselawn, the Motor Girls series and the Dorothy Dale series. Her plots often center on girls' friendships, camping, coastal and boating trips, motoring outings and city life, and typically turn on a mysterious message, a hidden object or an unexpected stranger. The style is brisk and accessible, suited to young readers, and reflects the early twentieth-century taste for adventure, independence and companionship in girls' fiction.